Most women try to lose weight at least once in their lives. Maybe you’re a mother who wants to lose all that baby weight. Or, perhaps your sedentary lifestyle, combined with an unbalanced diet, has left you with a body you don’t recognize anymore.

Whatever the case may be, you’re ready to lose weight and look great again. And if you want to see lasting success, you have to make sure your weight loss efforts include this key ingredient: self-love.

Why Self-Love is a Must If You Want to Lose Weight

– Weight loss becomes punishment in disguise

If you indulge one day, you cut back the next. It’s a way to keep ourselves in check. But sometimes when we’re desperate to lose weight, we take this balancing act and blow it out of proportion.

Instead of creating balance, you deprive and punish your body. And this can happen easily without self-love.

When you don’t love yourself, weight loss isn’t just about losing weight. It’s how you respond to negative self talk, which is fueled by negative feelings like self-disgust, disappointment, failure and panic. In other words, your weight loss is punishment in disguise, according to Lisa Rankin, M.D.

– You’ll end up with another body image issues even after you lose weight

It’s important to maintain a healthy body weight. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), being overweight or obese can lead to serious health complications, such as diabetes, cardiovascular problems and much more. It goes without saying that maintaining a healthy weight is important.

The problem is that when we think about losing weight, we don’t just think about losing extra weight. We think about how bad our body looks. We almost never say, “I love my body, and I’d like to lose weight.” Instead, we say disparaging things like, “I am overweight.” That just reinforces a negative belief and it’s not very loving.

If you don’t love your body before you lose weight, what makes you think you’ll love it later? Your lack of self-love will make you dislike something else about yourself.

– Food is negative

Food is how we nourish and care for our bodies, and it can bring us a lot of pleasure. But when we don’t love our bodies, we also don’t think our bodies deserve nourishing foods. So, food becomes an enemy that we avoid rather than welcome.

– You’ll hold onto negative beliefs along with all that fat

Are you holding onto limiting beliefs? It’s time to ask yourself if there are thoughts or habits that you’re not letting go of. Energy healer, Carol Tuttle, teaches that if you aren’t living true to yourself, you can gain weight and have a hard time losing it.

– You love a past or future version of yourself

Maybe you used to have a great body. Or maybe this is the first time you’re taking care of your body. Either way, it’s very easy to fall into the trap that who you are right now isn’t good enough

So, you start fooling yourself: the older you? She was so much better. The new you? She’s going to be better. But what about who you are right now? You have to begin loving yourself right now and that will carry you gracefully into a slimmer you. Otherwise, how can you expect to magically start loving yourself once you lose weight?

– Is food a filler for what’s missing?

When you don’t love yourself, it can be hard to make necessary, positive changes. So, instead of developing healthy coping mechanisms for stress, you reach for ice cream. Instead of address your loneliness, you eat comforting, but carbohydrate-heavy foods. In short, food becomes the filler for what’s really missing in your life: self-love.

How to Lose Weight Because You Love Yourself

As you can see, self-love isn’t just an idea. It’s what will make or break all of your weight loss efforts. With self-love, weight loss will stop feeling like punishment. What’s more, self-love is a sustainable practice that can last. Self-love is something you can carry with you no matter what your dress size is.

These seven simple tips will help you lose weight and increase self-love.

Change your mindset

Your mind is very powerful, and the thoughts in your mind can influence every cell in your body!  Now, more than ever, it’s important to change your negative thoughts to loving ones. This will help you lose weight. Here are some new mindsets to try:

1. Redefine “losing weight”

What does “losing weight” actually mean to you? Does it mean “getting skinny”, “my pre-baby body” or “looking like ( A Victoria’s Secret Model)”? Whatever your definition of “losing weight” is, try to replace with something like “being healthy”, “being strong” or “being me.”

2. Practice mindfulness

Mindfulness increases your self-awareness and helps you to identify triggers and stressors that lead to emotional eating. Mindfulness can also help you feel more content in the present moment, rather than pining for your past self or yearning for the new you. Finally, meditation can increase compassion and help you cultivate more self-love.

3. You’re more than your size

Body weight is just one of your many characteristics. And to top it off, it fluctuates. So, as body image coach, Sarah Vance, suggests, try not to put too much stock in it. Instead, it’s time to look at yourself as the complex, beautiful woman that you are, and not just a number on a scale.

4. Practice mirror affirmations

When you look at yourself, you probably don’t praise yourself. But now’s the time to start, even if you’re not at your ideal body weight yet. Place sticky notes on your mirror with positive affirmations that tell the truth about you: I look great!

5. Be grateful

Thanks to the research of Dr. Masaru Emoto, gratitude is considered to be the highest vibration you can have. When you’re grateful for what you have right now, it’s easier to feel happier and more positive. And when your mind is happy, so is your body. It’s time to start saying “Thank you” to your body.

It always brings you wherever you want. It stays with you through the thick and thin – literally! So, chances are, if you feel more gratitude for your body, you’ll love it unconditionally.

6. Enjoy your fitness routine

Most weight loss efforts include exercise, but life coach Isabel Foxen Duke offers ways to help you get fit without feeling crazy around exercise. A “work out” sounds like work,  and when does “work” ever sound appealing? Instead of “working out”, think about “moving” your body in ways that you enjoy and make you feel good.

7. Dress up

Don’t wait to dress yourself up for when you’re thinner. Psychologist, Jennifer Baumgartner, Psy.D. has found that dressing up can improve how you feel and act. And feeling good about yourself can kickstart your weight loss efforts.

You can lose weight and gain lots of love. ‘Sounds like a win-win, doesn’t it?